Now that temperatures have plummeted and our winter warmers have been whipped out of retirement, it seems high time we considered the accessories we’ll be relying on to add a certain je ne sais quoi to our wardrobes this season.

Forget the aged beanie you’ve been wearing year in, year out; this winter it’s time to go bigger and harder than ever before with your accessorising. Don’t believe us? All it takes is a glimpse at the style set to see that things are different this winter.  

Hats have been knocked off the top spot by balaclavas (yes, really) and thick socks have been replaced by leg warmers (no, this isn’t a joke). This winter, it’s about time you swaddled yourself in the accessories that the fashion cognoscenti are wrapping themselves up in. This is the line-up of snuggly plus-ones we’re predicting big things for.   

The winter accessory you never thought you’d see in a round-up has, inevitably, made it into a round-up. According to recent data released by Depop, there’s been a 145% increase in searches for balaclavas in the past month, with the resale site now having been flooded with hand-knitted iterations.

Since Raf Simmons for Calvin Klein first embraced the trend, souped-up snoods, as they were known in a former life, are back in a big way. All manner of brands, from Shrimps and Paloma Wool to Stella McCartney, have crafted their own takes on the balaclava, which deserves to be worn with your favourite knits and the ultimate winter warmer: a duvet coat. 

For the uninitiated, winter sunglasses are not only a protective barrier for eyes streaming from the cold, they’ll also elevate all your looks. 

Of course, while shades are most synonymous with the beaming rays of summer, they remain virtuous throughout the colder months too. For the days when you want to look that little bit more put together without actually putting anything together, a pair of oversized, face-covering winter sunglasses will serve you well. 

If you’re a smartphone user, you’ll be all too familiar with the struggle of trying to use the device while wearing gloves. Always one step ahead, the style set has found a solution to the struggle in the form of fingerless gloves – the sort that were firmly fixed on every 80s kid’s hands.

Since the start of September, searches for fingerless gloves have spiked by 106%, which will come as no surprise to TikTok users, given the fairy-core aesthetic that whipped style-conscious users of the app into a fashion frenzy.

It will come as no surprise to eagle-eyed fashion fans that snow boots, in all of their chunky and stompy glory, are big news for winter. After all, if fashion’s love-in with Ugg and stomper boots wasn’t a sign of the way footwear trends were heading, I’m not sure what was.

Prada has its own padded snow boot, crafted from creamy quilted leather – something it has in common with Adidas’s sell-out collaboration with Stella McCartney, although theirs is a khaki-coloured stomper style. The leading light for all things winter boot, though, is Moon Boot, which has even joined forces with Chloé and GCDS for two shearling-filled collaborations.

When Fendi, Prada and Karl Lagerfeld all craft and release their own fluff-adorned ear muffs within a matter of weeks of each other, you know it’s time for the fashion world to pay attention. Indeed, according to Google, searches for ear muffs have spiked by 100% in the last month, proof that the beanies we once tugged down below our ears to keep them toasty are no longer welcome in the style sphere.

For high-end, haute muffs, Fendi and Prada’s iterations are as branded, logoed and flashy as you might imagine; on the high street, fluffy ear muffs have similarly been crafted by Zara and Ugg, which raises the question: could the next winter warmer trend be matching your ear muffs to your boots? Watch this space.

Images: Moon Boots; Getty